For over 20 years, an ornate, gothic-style Roman Catholic church located in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Baltimore, Md. served as a “safe haven” for a Filipino community to gather and worship 9,000 miles from home. But what was once a lively, joyful place for potlucks, Christmas mass and community socials is now vacant, with its future uncertain.
This past year, the Shrine of the Sacred Heart and its adjacent school building were reimagined by Master of Architecture graduate and former church member, Julio "Miggy" Alumbro '25, to preserve a place that was meaningful to so many while strengthening its community’s future. Called “The Church in the Diaspora,” the adaptive reuse project reclaims a sense of belonging through a mix of community spaces and housing to capture the 2025 University of Maryland Master of Architecture Thesis Prize.
Thesis is a year-long, site-specific design project conceived during a Master of Architecture candidate’s final year. Often inspired by a global challenge, neighborhood need or personal experience, thesis is an opportunity for students to demonstrate the research and design skills amassed during their time in the program. Alumbro chose the Shrine as his project focus because of what it spiritually and physically represents to his immigrant community’s heritage.
"This was a place to practice our faith and where we could find a safe place to express ourselves culturally," said Alumbro, who was a part of the youth ministry growing up. "This was really a place lived in the diaspora, where we found comfort in a new world."
Alumbro was nine when he and his family moved to Baltimore from the Philippines to start a new life in 2009. Around that time, the Shrine of the Sacred Heart saw a significant "resurgence" of parishioners, with many Filipino families congregating in the church to practice their faith, Alumbro said.
The Shrine was one of 38 parishes shuttered late last year by the Archdiocese of Baltimore, which has seen declining attendance and increasing financial hardship. It’s a phenomenon impacting churches across North America; according to an article by the Congress for the New Urbanism, the National Council of Churches predicts that 100,000 U.S. churches will be closing in the coming years.
The Shrine of the Sacred Heart held its last mass on Christmas and is now in the process of appealing the closure, according to Anthony Consoli, AIA Emeritus, a retired University of Maryland, Baltimore County architect and parishioner of the church, who served as Alumbro's mentor for the project.
Based on his research, Alumbro found that many closed churches are being redeveloped for different uses, including beer gardens and wellness centers. But, for his project, Alumbro wanted to explore how the Shrine of the Sacred Heart could preserve its original identity and cultural traditions cultivated by the community.
“One of my goals was to delve into my own immigrant experience in this church and find a continuity between its old [purpose] and a new proposed idea to renew what this place can be as a haven,” Alumbro said.
Through support from Consoli and his thesis committee Michele Lamprakos, Marcus Cross and Eric Jenkins, Alumbro found a way to immerse his Filipino heritage and community’s spirit into the new design for the site while preserving its traditional architecture and several of its program uses. With minimal exterior interventions, the church was reconceived as a community center–which would house an event space, dining hall and possible daycare.
“I encouraged Miggy to try to retain some of the special treasures of the existing 1917 historic church, such as the exquisitely beautiful [German] stained-glass windows and the elegantly detailed oak woodwork throughout the church [in an effort] to try to preserve some of its unique aesthetic value in its future life as a community center,” Consoli said.
An expansive plaza connects the church to the old school building, redesigned to meet housing and retail needs for the growing neighborhood. By layering architectural elements—including a wide-beamed pergola and staggered terracing facing the plaza from the old school building—Alumbro offers a continuity of indoor-outdoor spaces to patch together indoor gathering, dwelling, and retail spaces with outdoor event spaces. The plaza, Alumbro's favorite element of his project, offers a place for families to gather outside of their homes and host events, like popup markets.
Alumbro shared that the canopy-like, indoor-outdoor space is prevalent in many parts of the Philippines and offers the "atmospheric" feeling of the country he wants to provide for the community.
"I think that was the kind of [approach] I wanted to take," Alumbro said. "Understanding that [living in the Philippines] isn't the same identity that we have living in the States. But, there are certain aspects that we start to bring in that are our core part of ourselves as Filipinos."
Associate Professor Michele Lamprakos, who served as Alumbro's thesis chair and who taught him in her adaptation course last fall, said that his project explores two themes she values: how to reuse and reimagine existing buildings; and how architecture can sustain community through change and continuity–that is, through an ever-evolving identity.
"Miggy’s project is future-oriented," Lamprakos said. "It builds on personal and community memory, which comes out clearly in Miggy’s presentation."